Fanfare for the Common Man: Welcome back Twinkies

The Twinkie is back.This is how you start a good week, with the Twinkie snack cake returning on July 15 to your local grocery store.This has been the longest eight months of my life having to live without Twinkies and HoHo’s and the famous Hostess cupcake.Little Debbie cakes are okay but they’re not Hostess.I remember the days when snack cakes didn’t try to hide what they really were, a little shot of sugar-lovin’ speed to help kids make it through the early afternoon doldrums to dinner. Sugar and chocolate, and more sugar, chock full with enough preservatives to cure bacon, the Twinkie wasn’t just bad for you, it was good and bad for you.Still, my excitement on the return of this little dowel of confectionary sweetness has been tempered.The Twinkie is back, they said, BUT . . . I hate when they do that, throwing in the disclaiming “but” to their announcement. It’s like the phrase “sort of.” It changes the whole dynamic of the announcement.“You’re going to survive the surgery, sort of . . .”“Twinkies are coming back, but . . .”But what?We’ve been without our favorite preservative engorged snack cake since before Christmas when Hostess went belly up. We want our Twinkies back. ALL of our Twinkies back, in fact.The word is out in an article appearing in the July 15 edition of USA Today that while the Twinkies are back, they may be a bit smaller than the Twinkie we remember.This is disconcerting news because the Twinkie I remember was usually gone in two bites. Tell me there’s not something awesome about “facing” a Hostess Twinkie in one bite.Stuff, squish, chomp, and chase it with a big glass of ice- cold milk.The new owners of Hostess are going to blame the smaller Twinkie on the fact that they are no longer using unionized workers. Does this mean our new Twinkie might not be up to par quality wise because of disorganized labor?According to the article, the new boxes hitting shelves list the cakes as having 270 calories and a weight of 77 grams for two cakes, or 135 calories and 38.5 grams for one cake. Right before it went out of business, the predecessor company, “Old Hostess,” had told the Associated Press that Twinkies were 150 calories per cake. Photos of past boxes online also indicate the weight to have been 42.5 grams per cake.“New Hostess” is blaming the smaller cakes on “Old Hostess.” That’s about 4 grams of missing cake, one very diminutive bite. “New Hostess” has said that Twinkies will remain the same price, at $3.99 for a box of 10, which means we’ll be paying the same for a box of Twinkies with around 40 grams less of Twinkie inside.Do we care? Not really.I’m just glad to have my Twinkies back.So what’s next? I’m feeling empowered.How about bringing back Hydrox cookies or Mallo Cups, or Ice Cream Cones cereal? I’d be a happy camper on a Rocky Mountain sugar high then.

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